Merkel
Driven by extensive archive material and interviews with those who know her, this is the astonishing story of how a triple outsider – a woman, a scientist, and an East German – became the de facto leader of the “Free World”, told for the first time for an international audience.
Avenging Evil
In 1946, just after the end of World War II, a secret organization of Holocaust survivors plans a terrible revenge: since the Nazis have killed millions of Jews, they will kill millions of Germans.
Between the Lines
In 1941, a Jewish woman on the run with forged papers involuntarily shares a train compartment with a German officer.
Goering's Catalogue: A Collection of Art and Blood
For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.
Love, Deutschmarks and Death
Cem Kaya’s dense documentary essay celebrates 60 years of Turkish music in Germany. An alternative post-war history that is at the same time a musical Who’s Who – from Yüksel Özkasap to Derdiyoklar and Muhabbet.
Woher kommst du eigentlich? Schwarze in Deutschland
Prejudices, ignorance, and racism still leave their mark on the everyday life of black Germans, respectively Europeans, until today. How do Afro-Germans deal with their history? Which colonial-racist patterns still shape our society today? With insights into various historic epochs, it is made clear that THE history of the Black people does not exist. And neither exists THE history of white people.
Hitler's Putsch: The Birth of the Nazi Party
The night of November 8, 1923, is arguably the most significant and transformative in the history of the twentieth century. A localised uprising in the Bavarian capital of Munich, led by a small man with a toothbrush moustache and a poisonous yet compelling grandiloquence, would have repercussions that would lead to the political shackling of an entire nation, the most abhorrent crimes of the century and a world war. You might say, Adolf Hitler came of age amid the smell of sweat and sawdust of a Munich beer hall. In the political chaos of 1923, he was a local irritant, gaining popularity among workers and soldiers, the ethos of his Nazi Party spreading like a virus. His first attempt at attaining true power came with an attempted putsch on the already separatist government of Bavaria, which left him imprisoned.
History Project
Join us as we journey through the most iconic film and media from Weimar Germanys Golden years
Dicke Freunde
Political satire about the billion-euro loan to the GDR in 1983, which was arranged by Franz-Josef Strauß and Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski to save a bankrupt bank.
Stammheim - Zeit des Terrors
The Stammheim trial against the leadership of the first generation of the RAF was one of the most elaborate in the Federal Republic of Germany. Through this trial, Stammheim also became a place of identity for the RAF. The docudrama uses the perspective of Horst Bubeck, who as a prison officer in the cell wing had the most intensive contact with the prisoners, to shed new light on the history.
Der lange Abschied von der Kohle
Die Sekretäre
The film talks about the rise and fall of the two most influential protagonists in GDR-politics. In succession, over long stretches even together, Ulbricht and Honecker determined the course of the GDR, of course without ever getting out of being a satellite state to the big brother in Moscow. The film looks for the caesura and crucial points in the power game between Ulbricht and Honecker.
The Wannsee Conference: The Documentary
It was arguably the deadliest conference in human history. The topic: plans to murder 11 million Jews in Europe. The participants were not psychopaths, but educated men from the SS, police, administration and ministries. The invitation to the meeting at Wannsee came from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office. The Wehrmacht's campaigns of conquest in Eastern Europe marked the beginning of the systematic murder of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. In mid-September 1941, Hitler made the decision to deport all Jews from Germany to the East. Although there had been transports before, Hitler's order represented a further escalation in the murderous decision-making process. Persecution and discrimination had been part of everyday life since 1933. But as a result, the living conditions for the Jews in the Third Reich became even more difficult, among them the Berlin Jew Margot Friedländer, born in 1921, and the Chotzen family.
Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte
Die Dichter und die Räterepublik
Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.
Caligari: When Horror Came to Cinema
On February 26, 1920, Robert Wiene's world-famous film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin. To this day, it is considered a manifesto of German expressionism; a legend of cinema and a key work to understand the nature of the Weimar Republic and the constant political turmoil in which a divided society lived after the end of the First World War.
Karajan: Portrait of a Maestro
An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.
Wilhelm II. - Die letzten Tage des deutschen Kaiserreichs
Documentary about the end of the regency of Kaiser Wilhelm II., Germany's last emperor.
Wie konnte es geschehen? - Teil 1: "Deutschland erwache..." (1914 - 1938)
In 1945, 160 German cities lay in ruins and the loss of millions of lives, billions in material assets and countless cultural treasures was mourned throughout Europe... With the question “How could it happen?”, the film goes back to the year 1914, when the “primal catastrophe of the 20th century” took its course with the First World War.
Alice and Horst
Alice and Horst paints a moving portrait of two siblings from Saarbrücken whose lives were shaped by their family’s antifascist resistance. As children, Alice Hornung and Horst Bernard were forced to flee from the Nazis into exile in France, where, despite constant danger, they also experienced great solidarity. After their return they continued their parents’ political commitment: against fascism, for peace and disarmament. The film combines personal memories with rare archival footage and portrays two individuals who, well into old age, remain unwavering in their commitment to justice and remembrance.